By Myrna Velasco
September 9, 2013 (updated)
Alarm bells have been raised for possible one to two-hours of brownouts in Luzon around 2015 when the Philippines hosts the various high-level meetings of the 21-member countries of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and the APEC Leaders’ Summit, but worry not for now because the Department of Energy (DOE) has given word that it has been flexing muscles to avoid such worst case scenario.
The year 2015 could serve as a milestone year for the Philippines as it will play host to 21 heads of governments for the APEC Leaders Summit. It will also be the period when the long-wished for integration of ASEAN economies will happen. In both events, the country cannot afford losing out.
In an interview with reporters, Energy Secretary Carlos Jericho L. Petilla indicated that based on their simulations, the country’s economic center of Luzon can be stricken with rolling power outages in the next two years if solutions are not set in place soon and efficiently enough.
Beyond scouring for policy ‘quick fixes’ to anticipated supply shortfalls, the energy department is also on aggressive hunt for investors who could put up additional 1,000 megawatts for Luzon grid in the short term.
When asked on the extent of possible rotating brownouts, Petilla noted “an hour to two (during) peak hours,” which he qualified to be at 11a.m.; 2 p.m. and 7p.m.
He was quick to qualify though that the feared brownouts are “not going to happen”; stressing that “the good thing about long-term planning is, if you already know the problem, you actually scavenge for every possible resource that you can have and that’s what we are doing right now.”
Among the measures being worked on by government and industry players are co-optimization of power capacity dispatch by fast-tracking the establishment of the reserves market; re-calibrating the timing of power plant downtimes so maintenance will not be scheduled during peak demand months of summer; as well as the setting up of off-the-shelf power facilities such as aero derivative-fueled gas turbines.
And since no plan is really cast in stone, Petilla said they are just working on simulations for now and “not (necessarily) come up with a perfect system. Aside from the reserve market which will be a big help, there are also gas-fired plants that can be built in 12-18 months.”
Petilla said a faster-than-expected economic growth has been driving up energy demand. On power project developments, he stressed that the original economic growth anchor was at 6.0-percent but that is now being scaled up to 7.5-7.8-percent.
In fact, the country’s economic growth is still based on moderate projections because the elasticity ratios being applied in the planning scheme of power utilities, including Manila Electric Company (Meralco), are just at 0.66 to 0.8-percent; which entail that the growth of the manufacturing sector will still be at low to moderate pace.
Petilla emphasized that while there are certain capacity additions, there appears to be a mismatch as to when some baseload plants will come on stream for Luzon grid because their implementations have been pushed back due to several factors, including the typically tricky approval processes within the level of host local governments.
“There will be (capacity additions)… but it is in the wrong time. Some plants started last year, but these will not be finished three years from now. What I’m looking at is from now to 2015. No matter what I do, they will not finish construction by that time, so I have to explore other solutions,” the energy chief said. source
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